WoW on the First Date? A geeky chick’s take

My guildie Redhawks wrote a post about dating as a WoW player a few days ago. I’ve always found the stereotype of the WoW player who can’t find a girlfriend (or boyfriend! let us not be sexist or homophobic) to be silly in itself, because, as a singleton WoW player, I’ve encountered way, like WAAAY more players who are romantically committed than players who are single. The rare fellow singletons I’ve met tend to be either very young or, like me, too overwhelmed with life to have energy left over to give another person.

It’s been so long since I’ve had the urge to be completely silly. And what better way to be silly than to exaggerate one’s misadventures while exploring Western (and other) society’s 2vs2 team ideal. Smug marrieds (the term, as well as the term “singleton”, belongs to Helen Fielding but is so appropriate) can feel even more smug about having married their high school sweetheart at the age of 18 (because, you know, EVERYONE was attracted to other people and had a sweetheart in high school! …there were a total of 2 remotely attractive guys at my high school and I was too shy to talk to either of them) and other singletons can feel satisfaction in the fact that, no matter how hard they fail, there’s always someone failing harder.

The UI Theory

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m pretty open about gaming. I’m just as open about my other hobbies. My rational is that we’re either compatible or we’re not. 98% of the time, I’m very satisfied with my IRL default UI. If I’m going to download an addon for it, it better meet my system requirements. No point in risking a wipe by teaming up with someone who’ll send my real life FPS through the roof.

And from what gamer guys say, you’d think that, as a girl, uttering the words World of Warcraft on a first date would equal instascore. To illustrate this, I’ve unscientifically guestimated the following statistics:

Yeah, you’d think that, as a girl, uttering the words World of Warcraft on a first date would equal instascore.

I won’t lie and say WoW’s never gotten me anywhere. There was that one time I crashed at a WoW friends’ house while on trip a few years ago…he offered to show me his WoW, I showed him my WoW, one thing led to another. What can I say? Neither of us could resist a well designed UI. I’ve also had a number on longstanding non-romantic friendships in real life! come from gaming discussions.

Buuuut, in general, WoW hasn’t gotten me very far.

This summer, it dawned on me that I was about to turn 26. I had a couple of collegues who were 26. They often talked about their husband, their children (yes, with a ren on the end), their permanent residence and their year-round job. Forgetting for a moment that I don’t even want any of that (ok, I do I want children, but pregnancy is NOT my thing, I’ll adopt, tyvm…and a year-round job would be pretty nice eventually, I am sometimes curious as to what it’s like to live above the poverty line), I panicked: “Oh noes! I haven’t even dated in years! I should give it a try again!”

The WoWophobe

You’d be amazed what you can find on Craigslist.

Next thing I knew, I was face to face with someone who was slightly too young for me, but not enough for it to be creepy. He was cute, we had mountain biking and hiking in common and we were both casual about other outdoorsy sports. Then I cleverly brought up WoW.

Me: I saw the Prince of Persia movie last week. It actually reminded me a lot of the game.Him: Yeah, movies based off of video games are pretty cool.Me: I wonder how the World of Warcraft movie will turn out.Him: My buddy had a girlfriend once who used to play World of Warcraft for like 9 hours a day. All she did all day was was play the game.

We awkwardly stared at each other for moment as we watched our rep with other person go down.

He did send me an email that night, but I never heard from him after that. I suspect he found my Twitter account and subsequently, my blog. (If you’re reading, hi!)

The WoWoholic

Of course, not everyone associates WoW with “crippling time wasting addiction”. Sometimes, the opposite happens.

Me: I play video games.Him: Me too. I mostly play WoW.Me: Awesome! I play a pal-Him: I don’t really have a main though. I raid with one of my hunters, with my shaman and with two of my druids.Me: Oh, I just raid with my pal-Him: I’m not finished. I also have a level 80 rogue I used for pvp, and an 80 shadow priest, dual specced warrior, DK-Me: Oh, I-Him: and a 78 mage, and two warlocks that I’m levelling through LFD.

Jerk didn’t let me talk AND HE DIDNT HAVE A PALADIN. Like WTF.

The Geekier-Than-Thou Attitude

Sometimes it’s also hard to have both WoW AND other hobbies in common.

Me: That’s so cool that we both play WoW! What else are you into?Him: I deeply appreciate extreme left wing eastern european cinematography.Me: That’s interesting! I love learning about new cultures and languages.Him: Negative, I possess no desire to aquire such knowledge, my primary concern is despair determined from the failings of our unscrupulous and inadequate politicians. I firmly believe in the revolutionary power of anarchy…Me: Zzzzz.

Ok, he used way more words than that, but I kinda fail at bullshit speech. Besides, I lied in that description. My game crashed (read: I fell asleep) way earlier on. (I can’t be too critical though, I talk boys to sleep fairly often too.)

There’s also the geek who took his geekness a tad bit too seriously. He didn’t like that I played WoW, oh no. Apparently, WoW is to gaming what Lady Gaga is to music and what Twilight is to literature. Since I rather enjoy dancing to Lady Gaga and haven’t read Twilight, I’m not sure where he was coming from.

Sometimes it’s not you they want anyway

By the end of the summer, I was pretty discouraged. As lovely as a real life default UI can be, IRL guildies tend to pressure you in to getting relationship addons and nastily hint that maybe the reason you haven’t even had a fling in a year and a half might be because there’s something wrong with you. Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense since there are a whole lot of ugly and not very nice people who are blissfully married.

Fortunately, I randomly met Gropey McGroperson one day. He wasn’t a gamer, but really didn’t care whether I was or not. He didn’t care about much, now that I think of it.

Him: Here, come stand closer, I can’t reach you.Me: I like to play video games.Him: You wanna come over to my place? My family’s gone for awhile, we’d have the place to ourselves.Me: Oh, you probably shouldn’t put your hands there, it’s a little awkward with all these little kids running around. Anyway, yeah, I’m really into raiding, but I haven’t had a lot of time to play lately.Him: You have such a nice ass, I can’t believe you don’t have a line of guys hitting on you already.Me: I have 3 paladins. Um, no, don’t undo that button, we’re in public and it holds my pants up.

He got a little offended when I didn’t let him stay the whole night and wasn’t interested in seeing him again.

Him: But we have such a good connection!Me: Sir, you and I have at least 4k latency. At least. That is NOT a good connection.

On the bright side, that probably extinguished my sex drive for the next year and a half. I’m no longer worried about there being anything wrong with me and I’ll certainly save on batteries.

As usual, Candace Bushnell has the answer

In the introduction to the edition of Sex and the City I read this summer, Candace Bushnell talks a bit about being single, dating, fantasies and eventually concludes that deep down inside, those of us who are single are single because we want to be.

I don’t think mentioning WoW makes a difference in dating either way, regardless of gender. All of my experiences have just reinforced my notion that we’re either compatible or we’re not. Human beings are way too complex to just be classified as WoW player and non-WoW player. To me, though, having a lot of common hobbies is really important so I still have no issues with bringing up WoW on the first date, whether it gets me anywhere or not. And not getting anywhere makes for better stories anyway.

Oh no worries, I’m just goofing around and everything is greatly exaggerated. I can get crazy geeky, but even I wouldn’t so as far as tell someone out loud that we’re at 4k latency! (I did, however, think it.)

I’ve never been one for traditional dating either. I do date at times, if I’m feeling lonely or when someone asks me out, but none of the relationships I’ve had came from dating.

I didn’t play WoW when I got together with my boyfriend… but I have a feeling he got me into WoW as a way to spend more time with me (before we were in a relationship).

I’m also 26 and it’s getting a bit scary seeing all my former classmates getting married (one of them today, actually). And it’s starting to be a bit annoying when people are amazed that I’ve been with my boyfriend for 3 years and yet we’re not living together, not planning marriage and kids, not spending every waking moment together… We’re just not that kind of people. I also don’t do dating – all my serious boyfriends were friends to begin with; the one guy I dated turned out to be boring when I got to know him better.

As for the amount of singles in the game… my experience is similar to yours. Most people I met in game are in a relationship, and more often than not they play with their SO. Even the guildies who are now single had a SO at some point… and I met some of them IRL and none were the basement dweller type.

I’ve been in a relationship (with a non-gamer BOOHOOHOOHOO *sniffles*) for a long time so I haven’t tried to chat anyone up for a long time (not that I was the ‘chatting people up’ type of person.. I am so shy I prefer the ‘stalk from afar’ strategy, unfortunately it was never very effective), anyway, back to the point. Whever I meet male gamers I think ‘AHA! We have something in common, we can talk about WoW’, but I’m usually disappointed to find they are either not interested to talk about gaming, only interested in talking about themselves, or say things to the effect of “Oh I don’t play WoW, I like having a life, thanks”. Bah. Maybe if I was interested in getting in their pants they’d be more engaging conversationalists.

Nah, I doubt it. Guys who want to get in your pants usually just talk about themselves too (people in general really like talking about themselves. that’s always been my trick as a shy person: get the other person talking so I don’t have to worry about what to say). Guys, I find, tend to be dooers more than talkers. They want to play the games, not talk about them over coffee.

A good laugh! and WoW can be such a blessing to get rid of oafs (or stalkers) actually, just talk about your list of alts (even if you haven’t got any) and how much you raid with your guild and you’ll be left in peace in no time.
I always found more geekier hobbies an ideal way to fast-select people worth hanging out with or not. if somebody is so uptight he can’t deal with a gamer, there is no future of any kind for us anyway – it only gets worse from there after all!😉

That post made me giggle🙂 I’ve had… similar issues venturing into the whole ‘dating scene after WoW’. When I started playing I was in a long term relationship and we both knew all about each other’s geeky sides (he was into Oblivion and CoD, I persuaded him to try out WoW, the rest is altitis history)

A few years later I’m single and wondering how I explain why I’d prefer not to organise dates on Tuesdays or Thursdays due to raid nights. I ended up in the exciting world of online dating where, although tempted to be vague to attract a wider selection of menfolk, I decided to be brutally honest in my profile and list all the geeky things I do and like, including gaming. It’s important that I have something in common with people I want to date/hang out with etc. so if they are put off by those things then I’m not interested!

And, in all seriousness, I’ve been thinking about this lately. I’m a Female Singleton player. I’m currently playing less while I sort out RL including social life, but truth is WoW is high on my list of favored leisure activities (and I’ve been playing for years relatively ‘seriously’).
Anyway .. I’m in the middle of entering the dating pool (going to keep it casual). So far I’ve only met one other WoW player. It’s definitely *not* something I’m going to bring up, and really it doesn’t matter for long-term compatibility since I’m not looking for that. Nonetheless it would be fun to meet more guys who I can actually talk about it with. Shared interests, ya know? Even if I don’t date them ..

Like Len above me, I’m also using an online dating site. Perhaps I could geek out my profile a bit more without directly mentioning WoW. I just don’t want to turn off Mr. ProfessionalHotManInSuit, because he could be fun for …something😉
Really I think what I need to do in this case it go looking for any potential cool WoW-players and approach them, perhaps.

Yeah, dating sites are a little weird because so much weighs on that little blurb.

I met one boyfriend off a dating site and I know so many people who met their significant other that way, but I dunno if I could do it again. It just feels so forced.

I always do mention gaming since I couldn’t be with a non-gamer, I just like gaming too much and the one time I had a non-gamer boyfriend, I was frustrated that I didn’t have enough time to play. But when I did date a gamer, I was frustrated that he wasn’t athletic and couldn’t keep up with me physically. And of the good friends I have that are both geeky and outdoorsy, none of them are academic and don’t understand how much school is central in my life. It never all lines up!

Great post Ophelie.
I often find that if your having to hide WoW from people just in the hopes of making a connection then that person really isn’t worth it, ether as a friend or partner.
As one who never really went activly looking for a gf I can’t really think what it must be like trying to bring up WoW while making a good impression on someone you have just met, most of the time at least for me that stuff comes up with people over time and without the rush they are more willing to accept it.

I’m quite lucky, my partner was alittle bit of a gamer before I met her but over time she got more into it being around myself and my friends who all played various games from DnD to Warhammer through consoles and WoW. I even got her interested in WoW one day and we now raid together. I think its an important part of our relationship because I know I could not stand to be with a partner who didn’t at least get why gaming is important. I feel sorry for those people you hear storys of who is with someone who thinks that any form of gaming, particulaly the evil MMO is a waste of time.

I agree with you, to a point.
I mean, when _long-term_ compatibilities are taken into consideration, how one spends and thinks of spending one’s leisure time certainly does matter.
I’d not be truly compatible with a hardcore TeeVee Watcher, and I’d at least expect that my WoW-time be truly respected (ideally ‘separate but shared’).
Relationships are shades of gray, though, IMO, and always about compromise.
Yes, because I’m currently in ‘sample spoon’ mode, I’m willing to be discreet about my gaming.
That doesn’t change that I’d still like to find more ‘IRL’ people who *do* play. Perhaps to satisfy my desire for some sort of WoW-connection, even if it’s not with whomever I’m currently dating.
I do agree 100% with your last sentence.

Of course, no one will ever have exactly the same interests as their partner. And that’s a good thing because it’s important to have at least some separate hobbies. (I also don’t WANT my guy to come to my yoga classes!)

Which hobbies you do want to have in common and what you’re willing to compromise on depends on you. As I see it, if I’m less happy in a relationship than I am on my own, I just don’t see the point. Relationships are supposed to add to my life, not take away from it!

Awesome post, Ophelie. I feel for you in many of those situations. At 28, I’m feeling the biological click ticking away, telling me I’ve only got so much time to find that one right man and have some nerdy babies. It bothers me from time to time (mostly at weddings for my family or friends), but most of the time, I’m perfectly happy to be single. My last two relationships were with gamers who turned out to be losers and I’ve kind of sworn it off for a while. While I’ve met some really awesome people in WoW, I don’t know if I want to spend all my quality time with my significant other in game. I want someone who I can do things in real life with, but also maybe play a little WoW together. What are the chances of that happening?

I’ve accepted at this point that maybe the right guy for me won’t play WoW at all, but will tolerate my inherent obsession with purpz and high dps. If a man can love me along with my odd quirks, who am I to fault him.

I’m always amazed when two people happen to be compatible. The odds of it are so so so small… Or maybe they’re just not picky.

I think I’d be ok with someone who doesn’t play WoW, but I can’t see myself with someone who’s not a gamer. It’s just been a part of my life for so long. Plus, gamers who aren’t WoW players tend to be easy to corrupt ;D

[…] if the fact/trivia/terrible secret that you play WoW would help you (or anyone) on a date? Well, Ophelle’s got a take on whether it helps or not from a girl’s view, complete with personal examples. And pie charts. […]

Haha, there are some real creeps out there. Coincidentally, I’ve met the guys I’ve clicked with the best when I haven’t really been ‘looking’ as such. I’m not really a drinker so meeting guys in bars was never going to happen for me. Plus, a lot of the kind of people you meet in bars are either creepy or drink too much.

Never been into the bar scene either. I’ve watched others do it and…meh…I enjoy conversation too much. When I do go to a bar, it’s to spend time with my friends, so hitting up a stranger would be really rude anyway.

This was a hilarious post and I related to a <bLOT of the things you mentioned here.

The game can make a great icebreaker and I’ve always been a “Samantha” at heart (since you brought up Bushnell and all), with Miranda tendencies – so I have enjoyed the “perks” of being vastly outnumbered in this game, by all the fellas.

Dating wise, I did have one long term relationship with someone I met thru the game and a few brief other stabs at it. I learned a LOT from those experiences. The bottom line is that dating guys from the game rarely ends well. Way too many people are involved, right out of the gate and when it’s good – it’s great and when it’s bad – man, is it bad.

I can honestly say that I haven’t had the game impact my dating life outside of the game – good or bad. I would prefer someone with dork tendencies, too – but too often, I find dorks that even make me look halfway demure. Like these “cosplay” guys and the manga freaks and that’s just WAY too much nerd for me. I mean, I play WoW, but I’m not that bad – lol

I secretly like being a minority in game too ^_^. But shhh, don’t tell anyone or I’ll get flamed off the internet!

I’ve actually never seen the TV show! I’ve only read the book, but I think I’d enjoy the TV show if I ever get my hands on it. Single women need more representation IMO.

About dating guys from the game, I think it’s problematic if you’re both in the same guild (but then again, the only “we met in guild” couple I’ve known was a little extreme…she had a few other guys in the guild make complaints against her because she was sexually harassing them, and he ended up in jail twice for being violent towards women), but there are an awful lot of couples who have met in game.

That said, I can’t do long distance relationships and I live in Newfoundland, so meeting people in game has never been an option for me.

I find a certain level of dorkiness attractive too. But yeah, it has to a be a level I can still relate to!

Yeah – ditto on the minority thing, I like to sing for my supper and I’m a natural hard worker, anyway. I don’t think I’d know what to do, if I were in a situation where things appeared easier for me or handed to me. I would still probably be just as hard working and determined to show what I can do – gender not withstanding.

The show is genius and can have some surprisingly deep and relateable moments. It does have its fluff and it’s fun parts – but you would be hard pressed to not find something in the show that you have related to or experienced or knew someone who has. And yes – it does have a positive message about being single and all the colors of it (i.e. sleeping around single, waiting for the one single, etc.)

Another book you might enjoy is “The Dirty Girls Social Club” by Alisa-Valdez Rodriguez. Very funny read and with a Latin spin on things. It’s incredibly charming.

I think it’s less about dorkiness and more about understanding, as well. Trying to explain why I am sort of unavailable two days a week or why I relate so much to my bipedal cow druid could fall on deaf ears to anybody I’m dating that doesn’t game. It’s one less hurdle you have to overcome towards possibly finding a good match for yourself.
🙂

Well I went to Juliard, and attended Harvard Business school, I lived through the black plague that was fun. I seen the Exorcist 638 times, and it keeps getting funnier everytime I see it, not to mention your talking to a dead guy…do you think I’m qualified now?

Seriously though for me, It’s not love until the girl slashes one of my tires in a fit of jealosy.

I never mention WoW until other person does first. Then I get really excited and then depressed when I realize he lives dozens and dozens of miles away and spend the rest of the evening wondering how I spent all my money on alcohol.

Um, I haven’t looked too much into FFXIV. It would be fun to have another game to play, but I barely have time for WoW, I can’t see how I’d fit another game in. I’d check it out if I know others who are playing, but otherwise I’ll probably let it pass me by.

I never associated my raiding and lack of dating, but now that you mention it, the first time I dated in years was the first time I wasn’t raiding regularly in years. I don’t see why it would make a difference- I spend my non-raiding time during weekday evenings doing schoolwork or sleeping anyway, but maybe I just don’t get lonely when I raid.

Of all your posts, this one made me laugh more than any other. While many of your posts are informative and helpful, they only go so far (I am a Paladin, but I tank stuff. And I’m a guy, so not all IRL stuff is applicable either). But I look forward to your blog for my WoW fix while at work more than any other blog because of your ability to transcend beyond the game itself. Thanks for sharing your gift of writing, and bits of your personal life, with us cyber-lurkers. Rock on, sister.

The goofing around posts are by far my favorite to write, but I tend to struggle with inspiration for them. I’m so jealous of those people who are naturally hilarious! On the right side of the blog, under “Classic Bossy Pally moments”, I have the other silly posts I’ve written, but yeah, I don’t manage to write them very often. WTB funnier life. ;D

Nerdy metaphors, awkward scenarios and you even involved the use of graphs. High-Five on this one.

I do admit that while reading your blog I imagined your interactions very much like a game of Sims, where you click the wrong thing and the other person gets a double minus sign over their head and hates you now.

If anyone ever said “negative” as a response to me, I’m sure I’d put “make this person feel dumb & inferior” at the top of my list. Then again, that may be how pissing contests start. I’m not sure, I’ve rarely competed in them and almost never remember them afterwards.

Additionally, how is it possible to level that many characters and not have a pally? Even I eventually caved in and bought the advice that you and @Bruherd had been selling.